The Secret Life Of East Coast Ira

“The many contains the unity of the one without losing the possibilities of the many. Personalities don’t exist, only personifications.” – Carl Jung

Nobody knows East Coast Ira but that’s the beauty of it, nobody knows.

Ira jingles his keys and drives his kids to school. He eats sushi and plays board games with his game face. He calls me from the East River Bridge to tell me about the secrets he keeps in his pocket. Easily accessible but safely out of sight, or right in plain sight, depending on how you look at it; pockets are cool like that. “Where do you put them at night?”, I asked.

He gazes at the Statue Of Liberty and says that society is governed by rules designed to protect us from our freedom. It’s a double entendre meaning that he is concerned for the future of business and also that he is transforming. Growing some extra eyes and maybe a wing, must be something in the air. He is not disloyal, he is dissatisfied. He is not dissatisfied, he is someone else entirely. He sees something sparkly and interesting and leans in for a better look.

East Coast Ira walks along the bridge overlooking America’s front yard, still trying to bring into focus the voice on the phone and the intricate pattern he sees in his head. He gets closer but the lines don’t get clearer, they only multiply, and multiply. The harder he looks, the the less he can see, even with all those eyes.

A cosmic cocktail of dust and magic, he walks a path hundreds of feet above the water, a vantage point from which many possibilities can be seen at once. People see him walking, talking into his phone like half the world, but they’re not in his world. He tells me his secrets before he realizes that I am his secret.

From his perch in the sky, Ira weighs his options. Multiplicity is truly a blessing, or it might be a curse. One foot in front of the other on the straight and narrow. But this is not life. This is not his life.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you”, he said.

“No, I don’t imagine that you have.”

East Coast Ira stands on a monument to mankind and wonders what’s next.